It has become common practice in livestock feeding to blend the ingredients of the feed in a box mixer, either stationary or mobile. The typical box mixer contains augers, paddle blades and other types of mixing components which are intended to operate on the ingredients of the feed to blend them into a substantially homogeneous mass and on demand to assist in conveying and discharging the feed from the box so that all animals fed from the batch in the mixer will be provided a substantially uniform ration content.
Achieving uniformity of distribution of all the ingredients of the mix throughout the feed mass is difficult. In particular, the handling of roughage, which is normally of a stringy, fibrous nature, provides problems in both mixing and conveying. Not only must the stringy roughage be blended uniformly into the feed, but it also must be effectively conveyed through the box and out through the discharge as part of an essentially continuous mass in which the uniformity of blend is maintained.
Prior art mixer feeders employed an auger mounted, fixed center blade which tends to wedge long-stemmed material between the box wall and the trough in which the auger operates. The hay processed with this prior art arrangement has a tendency to wind around or "hairpin" the fixed blade, to choke or jam up the discharge outlet, and has a further tendency to move erratically with the result that a regulated feed of material to create a pile of desired dimension is difficult to achieve.
Such predecessor mixer feeders have not proved effective and convenient to use and it remains desirable to provide a material mixing and feeding apparatus operable to continuously blend and mix all feed ingredients into the most homogeneous ration possible. It is also desirable to provide a mixer and feeder apparatus which will yield a faster, more efficient mixing action with a wide variety of feed materials, especially bales of long-stemmed hay.